Saturday, April 16, 2011

Eric Margolis: Murbarakism still rules in Egypt

The arrest and interrogation last week of deposed president Husni Mubarak and his two sons has left Egyptians jubilant.


The armed forces threw the Mubaraks to the wolves to placate mounting public demands for retribution against former leaders of the hated old regime.

But the fact remains, in spite of Mubarak’s fall, not much has changed in Egypt. The Old Guard of generals and bureaucrats still rule Egypt. An intensifying struggle goes on behind the scenes between the military and the fragmented democratic opposition. So far, the military retains an iron grip on Egypt in spite of noisy street demonstrations.

Muabarak is gone but Mubarakism still lives.

No one yet knows what September’s planned parliamentary elections will bring, or if they will be fair and open. One uneasily recalls Algeria’s first free vote in 1991. Islamists won a landslide. Algeria’s reactionary military annulled the vote and arrested democratic leaders. Egypt’s generals may do the same. ...

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